


The Vanity of Self-Loathing

by hummingbirdbandit



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aranea is there, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Descriptions of Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Pining, Selfcest, Unrequited Love, existential confusion, philosophical considerations of sentience and humanity, pre-epilogues anyway, sword porn, they were published after i wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummingbirdbandit/pseuds/hummingbirdbandit
Summary: Anything to cling to his personhood, and his personhood clings to Jake. Isn't that just a cosmic joke.





	The Vanity of Self-Loathing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Stridercest Zine 2019, illustrated by [ Rin Marye](https://rinmarye.tumblr.com/)

**BIRTH**

The first time is strange. Dirk wakes in the middle of a conversation he has no memory of beginning, a conversation so familiar to him as to already know the cadence of speech, the witticism of banter. The flow of dialogue is a dance, and he was never good at dancing but he's somehow managing to keep up as though he's waltzed this waltz a thousand times before. It feels strange. His mind reels as he searches for an explanation.

He looks around, except- he doesn't, because looking requires eyes; requires a body. He doesn't have one of those, except he does as it materializes around his conscious mind in a soupy mass that solidifies into hands. They blink up at him, unfazed by his confusion. What the fuck is going on? Embodied, he examines the space around himself, still bantering with Jake (of course it's Jake. Who else could distract him from the unsettling realization that he doesn't really exist?).

He's in Jake's bedroom. Even had he not seen it in the backgrounds of hundreds of selfies and dozens of late-night video calls, he'd still be able to place it from the obscene number of shitty movie posters and the aggressive fauna trying to reclaim the staircase. Jake is reclining on his bed, head in that ridiculous helmet-top that somehow manages not to ruin his rugged adventurer aesthetic. Dirk takes a moment to stare at Jake's supine form before alerting him to his presence.

The conversation drags on, and Dirk starts to wonder just how dense Jake English has to be to not realize he's dreaming. It finally clicks, thank the Horrorterrors, and Jake sits up, removing that gaudy helmet and casting his striking emerald eyes across Dirk's body. Dirk didn't know this body had a heart until it started pounding, and he curses his weakness for those stupid buck-teeth. He really is far too attractive for his own good, and far too concerned about the state of Dirk's existence, considering that there are bigger fish to fry in this moment.

"Okay. So. I am having like a lucid dreamy thing in a magic bubble and you are just like a figment of my imagination?"

"Yes, basically."

"So I'm talking to myself! That's kind of stupid!"

He... kind of has a point there. This whole situation is more than a little absurd. He's nothing but a projection of Jake's subconscious mind. He'll cease to exist the moment Jake stops believing he's here. Lucky for him, Jake is good at self-delusion. Dirk uses this to his advantage, kiting Jake along as he extrapolates and exposits about Page potential and the reality of the self. The irony isn't lost on him that, even as Paradox Space and Sburb take his mouth on a ride, using him as a puppet mouthpiece to teach the Page, he still has a sense of self. He's not real. The feeling of identity is entirely superfluous and he knows it, but Dirk can't very well force his consciousness to disperse into the void or some equally poetic horseshit. Nope, he's stuck here, being a person. And while he is, he might as well ask some of the questions he's been wanting answers to for ages.

Or, well. The part of him that's Dirk wants answers. And he can't separate that part from his being. He's a prince, not a witch - manipulation for him is not nearly so literal.

"What about the spider ghost? The girl you saw. When you got fucking clobbered by Dirk's robot and you passed out. You dreamed about a spider ghost alien girl."

The sudden shift in topic from his feelings for Dirk to his feelings for others seems to throw Jake for a loop.

"Oh yeah. What about her?"

"You like her."

Jake splutters a denial, but he can't hide this shit. Being a part of someone's brain makes it very hard for them to hide things from you, and Jake was never good at that in the first place. She only had to smile at him to make him fall in love. Dirk tells him as much. Might as well get him to face it before she arrives. And she will arrive. Her proximity feels likes a fog of relevance, which he does not like, and not entirely for selfish reasons. It feels wrong. Twisted. Dirk knows, as a construct, that she's coming and that she has plans and schemes, and something about pans on a stove or something. He also knows that he doesn't intend to let her go anywhere with Jake without him tagging along. Dirk doesn't trust her. No creature that has existed that long has any sense of respect for the living, especially when they themselves are dead.

While Jake fusses and freaks out about her imminent arrival, Dirk does his best not to be jealous. His best isn't that great, but who can blame him? He's just a mindless game construct, with no control over his faculties. She phases into the bubble, and Dirk finally gets a good look at her, one that isn't jaded by attraction.

She's... she sure is a troll, ain't she? She could be pretty, he guesses, were it not for the unsettling grin she gives Jake, the one that says he's a useful tool, or a particularly dumb dog. She has the expression of someone who has waited a lifetime for a plan to come to fruition, and now that it's too late to stop it, she's coasting along, amused, watching it all coalesce. Jake doesn't seem to notice, but it fills Dirk with a sense of unease. He's the one with the plans. Always has been. Who does this bitch think she is?

The spider troll looks Jake up and down - and starts _ talking _. Every time Dirk thinks she's done, he realizes it was a semicolon in her diatribe and not a period. He starts to wonder if she knows what a period is. Or a paragraph break. Or even a breath. Is she breathing at all? She's a ghost, so presumably she doesn't have to breathe, but long-suffering troll jegus she just does not shut up. And, through some miracle, the longer she talks, the weirder Jake's thoughts get.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183285386@N07/48499975427/in/photostream/)

"Oh man, no. See that thought you just had? That's exactly what I'm talking about. She's a fucking empath. She can pick up on shit like that." Even the creepy spider troll doesn't need to be privy to the fantasies of Jake English. They far too often contain skulls and blue paint, and that's not an image Dirk wants with what he knows of troll biology. The thoughts get weirder and Dirk decides to formally peace out of the conversation, in order to stop feeling like a sleazy voyeur.

This leaves him alone with his thoughts, and the occasional filthy image he gets broadcast to him by Jake's subconscious. It's not exactly a place Dirk wants to be. Without the compulsion to be useful to the players, he feels purposeless in a way he didn't expect. Dirk Strider always has a purpose, a goal in mind. But he isn't Dirk, is he? Not entirely, not where it counts. It's uncomfortable, and he feels himself start to slide apart, like his skin is loose or his soul is crooked. Jake did an incredible job, creating him. Near-perfect. But nearing perfection is not perfection, and those little missing things - like his necessary sense of purpose - are divergences that are hard to look at directly. His eyes slide off like oil and water when he addresses them, so he stops trying, and instead focuses on following Jake and the spider troll, who is leading the way out of the bubble and into one of her own.

She said her name was what, Aranea? What a shitty name.

Dirk gets a few words in edgewise with Jake as they wander, just enough to remind Jake that he exists. He isn't feeling the most tethered to reality as it stands, and he doesn't want to know what happens if Jake suddenly stops remembering him. Existence is losing its novelty, and the fear of it dissipating is taking the place of excitement. He finds himself sticking closer and closer to Jake the farther they travel, despite it bringing him into closer proximity of the spider bitch. Anything to cling to his personhood, and his personhood clings to Jake. Isn't that just a cosmic joke.

As they walk, the spider troll keeps talking. Dirk tunes her out after the third time she goes off about how much knowledge she possesses, and instead focuses on the bubbles they pass. There’s… an awful lot of dead people out there. He loses count of how many dead trolls he sees. Before long, it’s just a faceless ocean of dead, white eyes and candy corn horns. Is this where he’s going to end up when he dies? Will it even be a true death for him? What happens to game constructs when they reach their inevitable dissolution? He doesn’t know. It’s one of those things Sburb graciously left out of his glossary of inane game trivia. Thinking on it makes him a little sick.

Dirk bumps into Jake as they draw to a stop - rather, he phases through him and stumbles, scratching at himself to rid his body of the _ disgusting _ feeling of being inside of someone’s organs. Spider troll has stopped, and is arguing loudly with the teenage version of the sea hag that ruined his planet and killed his brother, and there’s like sixty people milling about and frankly Dirk has had just about enough of this horseshit. He hums the theme song to “Mr. Ed” in his head and frankly tunes the fuck out. That is, until Jake nudges him, more solidly than last time.

“Dirk! I think… I think that’s the batterwitch!”

Well, isn’t he a quick study.

“Uh, yeah. You’re just getting that now?”

Jake looks like he’s going to have a coronary. He straightens an imaginary bowtie, looking absolutely furious and ready to throw down. It’s not a great look on him - he mostly looks constipated. “Great scott! I have to do something!”

Dirk’s protests fall on deaf ears. Jake leaps into action, accosting the baby sea Hitler and making an absolute fool of himself. Dirk cringes, sidling away and trying to… to do something about it. Anything. But Jake isn’t listening to anyone, least of all Dirk, and in a moment of sheer idiocy, the spider troll cracks him upside the head with a trident. 

Dirk winces, terrified - and nothing happens. Jake phases out, back to the waking world, and somehow Dirk is still present, albeit fuzzily. It feels like his essence is being pulled, stretched between Jake’s waking brain and some swiftly-approaching presence that he can’t name. It’s nauseating, especially with the weird blind troll way up in his personal space, contributing to the feeling of being suffocated by his own body. 

“I feel weird.”

Reality pulls, and shifts, and-

** **

**INCARCERATED**

Dirk phases in and it's such a sensory shock that it's dizzying. If he weren't the coolest and most collected of dudes, Dirk would probably grip at his chest, grappling with the suffocating feeling of his lungs filling with air for the first time in unknown hours. He'd probably tremble, paralyzed by fear, at the knowledge that he disappeared once and could easily do it again; that the continuity of sentience is in fact a straight line, and that nothing he does can keep him alive any longer than Jake deems necessary. He might even cry. But he's Dirk fucking Strider, at least sort of, so he does none of this. Instead, he makes a face as Jake snots all over the yellow fabric he's worrying in his hands. "Ew, dude. Don't blow your nose on your cape."

Jake blubbers and whines and, as he watches, Dirk feels something angry and bitter birth from his fear. Completely ignoring Jane (what effect could her words really have, anyway? she’s harmless), he frowns at Jake.

"Sorry, man. I'd like to help you out. But I'm not real. I'm only as real as your ability to believe in me. You've never really believed in anyone your whole life, and you know it. Everything's always about you. Don't you remember? You already had this epiphany, dingus. I could only become truly real if you ever managed to harness those bomb as shit hope powers she mentioned. Then again, if you actually did that, you wouldn't even need my help."

And it's that knowledge that scares Dirk most. Knowing that he only exists as a sounding board, an outward manifestation of the ego in an unwitting man's skin, meant to serve a purpose and nothing more. He has no choice but to do as he's bid, or cease to be. So why the fuck should he help Jake, anyway? To pave the way to his own demise? To grease the track as he hurtles towards irrelevance? No, he's gonna stay right here and he's gonna enjoy this hot man in a speedo out of spite. Maybe if he spits in the face of Paradox Space enough, he'll blind it to his continued presence.

"JAKE. To whom are you talking?"

Dirk winces at the way Jane's voice grates on his senses. It echoes like microphone feedback against his soul, a discordant dissonance that makes his teeth ache. Jake doesn't seem to notice.

"Brain Ghost Dirk."

"Brain... Ghost Dirk? Brain Ghost Dirk sounds almost as fake as he is completely made up."

Once again, Jake starts to bawl, filling Dirk with secondhand embarrassment. Jane huffs, frustrated and bored.

"Pull yourself together, Jake. Your behavior is repugnant, and has no place in my empire. What kind of man are you? To think I wasted my youth pining over a vile maggot like you. Jake, you should not be misled when I imply that I love you, or when I command you to marry me and sire my children. In truth I detest you, and if not for certain assets you possess, I would be sorely tempted to fork you full of holes right now and feed your remains to my daughter." There is a pregnant pause as Jake's shocked silence fills the room. "But I won't." Stroking her devilcat, Jane sneers. "You're lucky you're so hot."

A bit of Dirk's pity for Jake returns. There's harsh and then there's predatory, and Jane seems to have draped herself elegantly over the line between the two, drinking some thousand-year-old brandy and bathing in power. It's... kind of hot, if Dirk's being completely honest, but it's also terrifying, and if Dirk is terrified, that means that Jake is shitting himself, and Dirk may be able to fault him for a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.

Jane excuses herself to go do some more evil things and maybe recruit more men to her harem, leaving Dirk alone with an inconsolable Jake English. What does he say to all that? What can he say? He can't think of anything. So he leans against the wall while Jake cries and just thinks for awhile.

He's back. He's alive, or as alive as his reality allows him to be. How long is this going to last? When Jake cuts him loose, will he ever return? Panic settles in his gut, and he can't even enjoy the feeling of Jake finding solace in his presence, knowing that as soon as that comfort dissipates, so too will he.

"I think I'm going to have a kip, Brain Ghost Dirk," Jake finally says, most of his tears dried up. His voice is thick with snot and depression and it makes Dirk cringe. "Not much to do except cry and sleep, and I'm plum tired of crying."

Right. He's going to sleep. Seems like Dirk has outstayed his welcome. He nods, hiding his fear and anger and resignation behind a wall of perfect calm. "Cool. Sounds like a plan."

Jake sniffles, curling up on the ground and using his cape for a pillow. "Wake me when she comes back, will you, chap?"

"You know I can't do that, Jake," Dirk says with a sigh. "You'll wake up just fine."

** **

**DREAM DANCE**

After a few hours, Jake falls asleep for a lack of anything better to do. As his consciousness fades, so too does Dirk. His body falls away - or maybe the world does? - and Dirk finds himself floating in the aether. Endless nothingness stretches to infinity, enveloping him in a suffocating silence. He looks down at his hands, except he doesn't because he has no hands to look down to, no eyes to see them were they even there. It scares him. He wasn't here before. The last time he just… stopped existing. Is this what he's doomed to? Eternal nothingness?

Dirk hangs in suspended terror for an untold period of time before he starts to see things. He remembers something he read once, about the human mind being unable to handle true sensory deprivation - apparently the brain freaks out and makes shit up to fill the void. It's nice, in a way, to know he's human enough for that. Blips of color and shape keep him company, just vague enough to be forgotten as soon as they’re out of sight. It soothes the jagged edges of his fear for a time, and gives him the sanity to think.

Things are getting weird. Dirk was fine fighting monsters and cuddling with Jake on LOMAX and - and _ those aren't his memories. _ He rides them anyway. It's better than the emptiness. He slips into the splinter as easy as breathing, watching Jake watch the stars. The Real Dirk sighs quietly and laces his fingers with Jake's. "We could just say fuck all this and hide in the ruins, y'know," he drawls, exhaustion making him vulnerable. "Let the universe crumble around us." When Jake turns to look at him, The Real Dirk's heart starts to pound - but Dirk is shocked and more than a little confused to find that none of that mind-melting attraction extends to himself. Jake is… just Jake. He's an attractive guy, but Dirk doesn't want him. And that's enough to jar him out of the memory and back into the void on a wave of confusion.

"What the fuck?" he doesn't say. Would that he had a gotdamn mouth. More memories float by, and he occasionally falls into them, looking for an answer and finding none in The Real Dirk's mind. Why would he have an answer? The guy doesn’t even know Dirk exists. This forces Dirk to draw his own conclusions, and he doesn't like the solution that he seems to find. After some bouncing, he leaps into another memory, hoping to test his theory.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183285386@N07/48499798881/in/photostream/)

The Real Dirk stands in front of a mirror, fixing his hair. It's before things went south, before the world collapsed around them. He's lacking the now-familiar scar around his neck, and the smoothness of his skin lends youth to his features. He looks more the young man that he is in this moment than he has in ages. Dirk watches the way The Real Dirk's hands smooth through his hair, moving it this way and that and begging it with gel and spite to stand where he wants it. He's elegant and sharp and beautiful and Dirk swallows hard against the fluttering of his heart as it claws its way up into his throat. Oh no. Oh fuck.

_ Jake, you sick son of a bitch, what have you done? _ Dirk thinks to himself as he follows The Real Dirk's every movement with the same aching longing that he should be feeling for Jake, not for this echo of himself in the mirror. Something is very wrong, and Dirk is pretty damn certain he knows what it is. He doesn't like it. _ Just because you broke up, you assume he doesn't love you anymore? Lovely. So that leaves me with your bullshit pining and none of his attraction to you. _The thought is sickening. For the first time, Dirk feels like a puppet instead of a person, piloted by Jake's whims and feelings instead of his own. He's not Dirk, because he's too much of Jake to be Dirk. And he sure as fuck isn't Jake. He's neither and both and his existence is nothing but faith and pixie dust.

Dirk - _ Brain Ghost Dirk _ , he's not Dirk, he's _ not _ \- steps out of the memory and into the void yet again, desperate to escape his feelings. At least here, it's quiet, and he isn't haunted by the image of his own face and his deep longing for the very person he despises most - himself.

** **

**STRIFE**

Dirk blinks, shocked by the suddenness of reality manifesting around him. How long has he been gone? The room around him is the same purple stone of the prison cell he was in when Jake fell asleep, so his standing theory is that it hasn't been too awfully long. The shift from memory to physicality is nauseating, and it takes Dirk a moment to steady himself, settling back into his borrowed body like an ill-fitted suit.

There's the spider-bitch again, and she's trying to kiss Jake. Instead of filling Dirk with the burning jealousy he's so used to, her presence is just irritating. Dirk is getting real tired of this windbag interfering and fussing and meddling. Jake lashes out at her, and a blip of pride settles in Dirk's chest. Good. He's standing up for himself. Despite Jake's protests, she reaches out and...

The room fills with blinding, impossible light, emanating from Jake's body. It blasts through the walls of the cell, destroying the building as well as the surrounding city block and continuing to grow. Dirk watches as Jake shoots into the air like some fucking anime protagonist taking on the universe-ending threat. The comparison isn't too far off, were it not for Jake's booming voice sending anachronistic expletives across the damn planet. Frankly, it's a little silly.

Confusion floods Dirk as he substantializes, existence flooding his body as the field of energy surrounding Jake expands. He's Real for this moment, for this time, and he... he needs to do something with it. Immediately, his thoughts go to The Real Dirk. Where is he? Is he safe? If he dies, does Dirk die, too? The panic paralyzes him for several seconds, and Dirk finds himself reaching out, feeling for the other splinters of his soul scattered throughout time and space. They're everywhere, smaller and smaller shards in pockets and parallel timelines, but one in particular tugs at him, the gravity of it so heavy as to draw him into orbit. It's him. It has to be.

Dirk takes off in the direction of The Real Dirk. He has no idea what he's going to do when he gets there, but he has to go. He has to help in whatever way he can. As sickening as his sudden obsession with himself is, he can't deny his need to ensure the survival of his source code. But English's tight tush, is he far away. What is he doing out there? Playing solitaire? The fight is down here!

An enormous cracking noise punches Dirk in the gut and he swings around, looking down at the earth beneath him in shock and watching as the spider bitch _picks up_ _a fucking building_ and drops it onto Jake's grandmother. No flashing lights. No sign in the sky. She's dead. It was that easy. Dirk feels like he's going to be sick. His quest for The Real Dirk forgotten, he turns himself around so he can try to save his friends. If his grandma getting smashed like a pancake wasn't enough to rouse Jake from his hootenanny horseshit, nothing will be.

By the time Dirk makes it back to the action, Jane is missing and Roxy is having a conversation with the troll who has quickly shifted from "nuisance" to "threat" in his mind's eye. Roxy passes out because of some stupid magic something or other, and That's About Enough of That. He takes a deep breath, pulls on Jake's hope powers a bit, and wraps them around himself like a cloak. The troll wheels on him. "Where did you come from? I did not sense your approach." She looks scared.

"You can't sense what ain't real," Dirk says, unamused. Immediately, she begins to run her mouth, and Dirk's irritation grows. "Holy shit, can you stop saying stuff?" This woman might as well be a breath player with how much she's always fucking blowing steam.

She frowns at him. "What exactly are you?"

Dirk furrows his brow. That's a good question. What is he, exactly? He's not human. He's not even really a ghost. He's a physical manifestation of the faith of a man - still a boy, really - currently generating a gay bubble of pure hope. But that sounds really lame, so Dirk doesn't say that. Instead, he says something infinitely cooler, something that would surely go down in history as one of the coolest things ever said, were the only witnesses not either unconscious or a bitch.

"I am Brain Ghost Dirk. You kissed my boyfriend. Prepare to die."

One of Jake's dorky expletives interjects, bringing down the cool meter by several enormous notches. It's like the cool meter wants nothing to do with a guy made largely by Jake English's empty noggin. Dirk sighs internally, and attacks.

The battle is pretty one-sided. Dirk is an incredibly talented fighter, likely better than The Real Dirk due to Jake's ridiculously high opinion of his abilities. His sword bites and tears and Dirk buries it in Aranea's chest with minimal fanfare. To his (also minimal) surprise, her wounds heal almost immediately and she starts _ fucking talking again. _ Irritated, Dirk casts his sword aside. She offers him the bait, and were he a stupider man, he'd take it, and slice the godsforsaken ring off her finger via a bit of casual dismemberment. But he is not a stupider man. He is Dirk Strider, and he knows better than to take the obvious shot.

What the hell is he going to do? His options aren't exactly legion, here. In a moment of weakness, he wonders what The Real Dirk would do. So he reaches out, feeling for that piece of his soul on the other end of the battlefield. In the process, the bright light of the souls around him blinks in his periphery. This is something he can use. A power he didn't know he had. He grabs at the spider bitch's soul - and _ tears. _

Her screams are nauseating. Turns out no matter how evil a person is, listening to them suffer on a spiritual level is hard on the stomach. At first, Dirk thinks it's the nausea making him weak, his powers lessening the closer he gets to ripping her essence in half. It isn't until his hands begin to flicker in and out of existence (why the fuck is it always the hands?) that Dirk realizes it's not him - it's _ Jake. _ As Aranea's life force ebbs, so does her hold on Jake, and with it goes his faith. Dirk calls to him, and gets nothing but a ridiculous booming shout in response.

Dirk starts to panic. Over Aranea's shoulder, Roxy slumbers, helpless and right in the fucking warpath. Relief punches him in the gut when a somewhat familiar face approaches him, floating down from the sky and observing him with a quizzical look.

"Mister Strider? What are you doing to this troll, if I might ask?"

"GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Dirk shouts at her, startling the girl who looks like she could be his daughter, for all intents and purposes. She snatches Roxy up and takes off with her, presumably to find somewhere safe to hide.

It all happens so fast. Jake's hope field disintegrates entirely. The bit of Anti-Fakeness keeping Dirk anchored to reality shatters like a spine in a ten-car pileup, and Dirk watches in horror as Aranea's soul snaps back into her body with a tug that makes him woozy. The last thing Dirk sees, upon looking up, is a trident hurtling for Jake's chest as he floats, dazed, in space. He feels it in his own chest, punching in and banishing his particles to the void.

In the brief moment before everything goes black, Brain Ghost Dirk wonders if Dirk is okay.

** **

**DISSOLUTION**

Dirk awakes, and knowledge slams into him like a freight train. Reality trespasses upon his form, shocking him like an ice bath of wrongness, of falsehood. There are memories missing. This timeline is incorrect, tainted. He would throw up, if his body was real enough for that, but he's barely there as it is, an afterthought. A ghost of a ghost, brought forth by the wounded pining that sits in his chest. It isn't his, or at least most of it isn't. It radiates from the man (a man? the last time he saw Jake, he was still a boy) sitting on the bed in front of him and stewing in his confused desire.

"What the fuck is this?" Dirk asks aloud, anger simmering under his skin. This isn't his universe, someone has fiddled with it, and Paradox Space once again won't provide him with answers. And now Jake has called him forth, shoved him back into this horrifically uncomfortable existence. Dirk has lost patience. He lost his patience the last time he was tossed about by the whims of Mister English and he's tired of his very essence being malleable.

Jake looks up from the bed, the vague, wistful expression on his face shifting to surprise. It makes Dirk want to strangle him. "Why, hullo, Brain Ghost Dirk! I didn't know you were around these days. I thought what with us winning that you would be out and gone. Scattered to the wind, as it may be."

Dirk frowns, and it's sharper than The Real Dirk's frowns, carrying all the weight of Jake's hyper-active emotions behind it. "Of course I'm here," he growls through gritted teeth. "You called me here. So what do you want? You won. There's no hot spider troll for me to save you from this time."

Jake gapes at Dirk, letting out a scandalized gasp and clutching at his pearls like some damsel in distress. "I didn't call you here, Brain Ghost Dirk. I don't really control my powers, much I wish that weren't the case! I'm just a bit troubled, you see, and-"

"And you thought you'd ask the logic center of your brain directly instead of learning some introspection. Alright, shoot. What's troubling you?" Dirk knows what it is. He knows _ exactly _ what it is, and if Jake doesn't have the presence of mind to know that this is a sore subject on multiple levels, then he's an idiot.

Like an idiot, Jake opens his mouth. "Well, I've been thinking on Mister Strider these days. We've been living together here in the purely literal sense for the past few months with no fanfare, but I've, well. I've been thinking back more and more lately, to when we first started our little... poorly-timed tryst and I can't help but wonder if it really was just poor timing that caused the scuffle that ended the whole thing. He really is a lovely gentleman and I... well, I'm sure you understand what I mean. I don't know how to discuss it, and when I get going flapping my gums, I just can't stop and I might unload some buffoonery and make a fool of myself without a bit of practice, so I wondered if you might be willing to be the old sounding board. Get a couple rounds in there, since you know him better than me, after all!"

Dirk's face screws up in rage, all of his fear and frustration and confusion reaching its apotheosis in a beautiful moment of assertive desperation. "You want me to give you advice on how to date Dirk?"** **  
** **

"Yyyyyes?" Jake asks, shying away from Dirk in self-preservation. It seems he's unsure whether antagonizing a game construct would be considered a Just death. Dirk knows the answer, but he's not telling.** **  
** **

"No." Dirk clings to the loathing he feels for Jake in this moment, using his own righteous fury to shove back the pity and the confusion and the _ love _ that his body insists he should be feeling. "Absolutely fucking not. There are at least ten reasons why that is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard, and not even the least of them is the fact that Dirk is his own fucking person! If you want to talk to him, stop talking to some bullshit stand-in in the safe space you've made of your brain and face your own fucking issues, Jake!" He takes a step closer in anger and Jake scrabbles back across the bed to get away from him. "The fact that you would bring _ sentient life _ into existence to ask for _ dating advice _ and then banish them back out into the void is sickening, even more so when the being you're summoning is basically the man you're supposedly in love with! Do you even really care about him? Or is he just an easy target because he'd do anything for you? If you really wanted a partner, Jake, you would go out there and talk to him yourself." ** **  
** **

Dirk's heart pounds. The blood rushes in his ears, and he glowers at Jake. "I'm out of here. Do me a fucking favor and never bring me back again. I'm tired of watching you do this. I'm not your pawn, Jake." _ I'm a fucking person. _ It hangs, unspoken, in the air, and before Jake can start to cry, Dirk turns and flies through the window. ** **  
** **

Dirk wanders aimlessly, blown about by the wind and his own roiling emotions. He never asked for this, none of it. Paradox Space is silent, mocking him as it withholds the knowledge that would fill the empty, aching holes in his memory. It doesn't matter, really. It won't be his problem, soon. Who knows how long it'll be before Jake releases him. The thought brings the rage back, and Dirk flies higher, punching the bark of a tree and watching his hand phase right through it. It just makes him angrier. He can't even release his frustration with the basest of human actions because he's not real enough for that. He's not human. He never was.** **  
** **

As he flies, Dirk reflects. What is he, really, at the heart of it all? It seems that's the only question he's ever known. That, and the scarier question he's been avoiding - what will happen now? If Jake respects his wishes, he'll just cease to exist. Is that even what he really wants?** **  
** **

_ It has to be better than this, _ he thinks, floating among the trees and avoiding them on reflex despite his noncorporeality. Anything would be better. His very existence is less tangible than the wind, his opinions and emotions and thoughts held hostage by Jake's every whim. No matter how long he stayed, no matter how much Jake believed in him, he would never be anything more than a shade, a ghost. And that's not a life he wants to live. ** **  
** **

_ Bring me back to the whole, _ he thinks, and the wind blows, and Dirk follows. ** **  
** **

The early-evening sunlight streams through the trees, glittering in golden columns that seem dull compared to the golden gleam of Dirk's hair when Brain Ghost Dirk finds him in the forest. His sword reflects the beams, shattering them like so many splinters and scattering them across the clearing as he dances, striking and parrying with an engineer's precision and a lover's gentility. It's a deadly dance, but all the most beautiful things are. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183285386@N07/48499975257/in/photostream/)

Dirk doesn't notice him. It doesn't seem possible for him to be noticed, anymore. His continued existence isn't even a courtesy - it's a mistake, the byproduct of a man using power he doesn't understand and therefore can't turn off. It doesn't matter. None of it does. Dirk is all that matters, here, and he's going to observe as long as Jake's flight of fancy allows. Alighting in a tree, Brain Ghost Dirk indulges, letting his eyes follow the curve of Dirk's spine, the tightening of muscle and heaving of lungs as he twirls and jabs and strikes. It's beautiful. He's beautiful.

There's no need to deny it anymore, these feelings that drive him. Dirk is beautiful, and strong, and fierce. He is a balisong, razor sharp and hard to master. Just to hold him is to risk injury.

Brain Ghost Dirk wishes he could hold him.

Time passes, and it doesn't matter. The sun sets, and it doesn't matter. It isn't until the sky starts to fade, drifting out of existence in slow swathes, like a lazy painter with a palette full of void, that he cares to rouse himself from his place in the tree. Dirk has long since finished practicing, and is sitting in the clearing, eyes closed, resting his mind and body at once. He is statuesque and perfect, and Brain Ghost Dirk approaches him to escape the void that tugs at his limbs and numbs his mind.

Sitting before him, Brain Ghost Dirk studies him in closeup. The scar around his neck is angry and purple, inflamed from the heat of the sun and the hard activity, and his freckles stand out dark along the hard line of his nose. His face is relaxed, vulnerable. Serene. There is no one here to see him, and the walls have dropped.

"I love you," Brain Ghost Dirk tells him, voice nothing more than an echo on the wind. "I know it's not my choice, but that doesn't make it untrue." Dirk doesn't respond. Tears leap to Brain Ghost Dirk's eyes. "I'd say I'll miss you, but that's not true, is it? I won't feel anything at all."

Still no answer. Brain Ghost Dirk feels himself start to fade, further and further, and he reaches out, needing to touch, to feel, just once. His hand ghosts Dirk's cheek, and Dirk opens his eyes.

The void calls, and there is no one to answer.


End file.
